NDLF IT Employees Wing presented a representation to The Secretary, Department of Labour and Employment, Government of Tamil Nadu at the Secretariat, St George Fort, Chennai on May 16, 2017. The delegation was led by Mr. Karpaga Vinayagam, Organizer of NDLF IT Employees Wing and union lawyer Mr. Sakthi Suresh.

About 12 persons including affected employees from Wipro, Cognizant and other members of NDLF IT Employees Wing joined the delegation.

The Labour secretary received the petition and discussed the issues raised therein with the members of delegation.

The delegation explained to her that the situation is serious with thousands of job losses happening in major companies like Wipro, Cognizant, IBM, Capegemini, Tech Mahnidra and others. It was explained that these companies do not declare this as a layoff or retrenchment under the Industrial Dispute Act, but force the employees to resign citing various reasons. Affected employees explained how they are forced to submit resignation right in front of the HR person, then and there. The union representatives explained how many employees were put under enormous pressure by HR managers treatment.

The companies clarify to the media that there are no retrenchments, but only voluntary attrition (employees leaving on their own). But NDLF IT Employees Wing have received hundreds of submissions from affected employees in Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. They narrate how they were given a low rating after years of dedicated work, after getting a promotion just 2 months back, after getting appreciation from clients and immediate supervisors. There are also instances where the rating given by immediate supervisor is changed by higher ups. The employees are denied any information about the rating change.

The employees also explained how after giving a low rating, the employees is released from current project, and the system blocks managers of any project to select them in their team. We emphasized that this is not an isolated grievance of an individual employees but a planned systemic retrenchment process disguised as voluntary attrition.

But the labour secretary advised the affected employees to file grievances with the labour commissioner and the department will initiate conciliation process. If there are any violation of legal procedure appropriate action will be taken.

After taking subsidized land, electricity supply and tax holidays in the guise of generating employment, the IT companies resort to these kind of unfair and illegal practices which lead to loss of employment for thousands of employees. We demand that the government should not remain a mute spectator to this mass layoffs by IT companies, but should take strong action to put a stop this practice immediately.